BIG SANDY, Texas--The purchase of Ambassador University's
property at Big Sandy by LaRoche College of Pittsburgh, Pa., has fallen
through.

Bernie Schnippert, treasurer of the Pasadena, Calif.-based
Worldwide Church of God, which owns the property, said Aug. 17 the WCG had
been notified by attorneys for LaRoche that LaRoche had been unsuccessful
in securing the necessary financing and doubted that it would be able to
do so in the future.

The notification came only a week before the sale was set
to close on Aug. 23, a source close to Ambassador said.

According to LaRoche president William Kerr, U.S. government
regulations figured in the failure of the sale.

He reportedly told The Longview (Texas) News Journal that,
because LaRoche wanted primarily to educate foreign students at the site,
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services would have required the university
to go through a waiting period of up to four years before it could formally
accept students or be declared an institution.

Dr. Kerr said that, since LaRoche couldn't remain open
without students, it would instead add to its 100-foreign-student population
at its campus in Pennsylvania.

Elusive financing

LaRoche is a private liberals-arts college affiliated with
a Roman Catholic order, the Sisters of Divine Providence. It had placed
the property under contingency contract early last year and had been attempting
to secure financing since then.

LaRoche wanted to use the Big Sandy facility to educate
foreign students, especially those from war-torn and poor countries, LaRoche
officials had said.

The Worldwide Church of God closed Ambassador in August
1997 after declining enrollment and a shrinking financial subsidy from the
church put the university in a financial bind. Ambassador conducted its
last graduation ceremony in May 1997.

The Catholic Diocese of Tyler had helped LaRoche contact
the WCG and had encouraged the purchase.

LaRoche president William Kerr told The Gilmer Mirror,
a county-seat newspaper serving Big Sandy, only a few weeks ago that LaRoche
hoped to open this fall with a few students and a "skeleton" program.

Dr. Schnippert said he could not comment on whether LaRoche
forfeited earnest money because that would violate financial nondisclosure
agreements. He said he also could not comment about whether LaRoche was
paying a share of the upkeep of the campus while the sale was pending.

LaRoche entered into a purchase-and-sale agreement with
the WCG for the Big Sandy property last August.

Sources close to the university said that, when LaRoche
officials began seeking extensions on closing the deal back in the winter,
the WCG had asked them to begin bearing part of the cost of upkeep.

Great disappointment

Catholic East Texas, a newspaper serving the Diocese of
Tyler, reported in its Aug. 20 edition that "just over a year after
the initial rumors of a new Catholic college within the Tyler Diocese, the
president of LaRoche College said the dream will not become reality."

"We ran into several problems, particularly with accrediting
agencies," the paper quoted Dr. Kerr as stating. "It's just not
going to be. It would have been a wonderful work for the Lord. It is a very
great disappointment to us all."

Dr. Kerr, who was to serve as president of the new, stand-alone
institution--which was to be called Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) University--while
remaining president of LaRoche, was apparently confident that the sale would
go through. He recently had four horses he owns moved to stables on the
university grounds.

Some former Ambassador faculty members had postponed signing
contracts with other institutions in hopes of being on the faculty of the
new college at Big Sandy.

One man, who had an opportunity to teach at Texas A&M
University at Commerce, said he did not sign a contract there because he
had been told by Dr. Kerr only a few weeks ago he would have a job on the
faculty of the new school.

Dr. Schnippert said several other serious potential buyers
for the Ambassador property are waiting in the wings, and he expects it
to sell soon.

He does not anticipate that the local WCG congregation,
which moved off campus last winter as the sale was pending, will move back
onto campus.

"I understand they are very happy with the facilities"
at Abundant Life Temple in nearby Gladewater, he said.

The sale price of Ambassador has not been disclosed. Replacement
cost of the approximately 230-acre core campus and about 2,000 adjacent
acres has been estimated at $65 million. Unsubstantiated reports set the
purchase price at about $35 million.